I don’t suppose there’s much use in
putting a spoiler alert in a review of a film about Bin Laden. We know how this story ends (and more or less
how it begins). 9/11, Tora Bora, Black
Sites, Abbottabad- these are words everyone not in stasis for the past 10 years
have heard. There are few things that
stir passions (on both sides of the political spectrum) than mention of the War
on Terror, CIA black sites, or the Bush detention program (i.e. the torture
policy). A lot of what people think
about Zero Dark Thirty, as a result,
will depend to no small extent on what each viewer thinks about the actual
events, policies, and figures being dramatized.

At the center of the film is Maya
(Jessica Chastain), representing the female CIA agent (actual identity still unknown)
who we now know was the driving force behind the search for Bin Laden himself
in the years leading up to his death.
Full of a Captain Ahab-esque obsession with finding the mastermind of Al
Qaeda, most of the first two hours of the film are devoted to Maya’s nearly
decade-long search for leads on Bin Laden’s whereabouts. Through years of painstaking efforts-
interrogating (and sometimes torturing or abusing) detainees, tracing and
locating phone calls, cross-checking terrorist leaders’ “war names” with their
actual names, and sometimes just making leaps of intuition- Maya sifts through
the mound of false, outdated, or misleading intel before eventually finding the
actual needle in the haystack; the identity of Bin Laden’s top courier, whom
her people are then able to track to the fateful compound in Abbottabad. This long and painstakingly detailed journey
is punctuated with depictions of several actual Al-Qaeda attacks in the years
after 9/11, reminding the viewer every so often of the very real consequences
of failure in Maya’s line of work.

Maya is hardly a likeable character,
by any stretch of the imagination. Her
reasons for continuing to pursue Bin Laden even though he himself is no longer
an immediate threat are compelling (and most people who see the film will
probably agree with her arguments), but she has no friends, no social life, and
(apparently) no close family. When
dealing with those who disagree with or oppose her she’s downright aggressive,
and even around people who like or support her she’s abrasive and distant. Not that she’s without reason to be- despite the
growing strength of her evidence about Bin Laden, she has to practically bully
her way through layers of thick bureaucratic tape to get anything done about
it. Her passion, her energy, her fierce
intelligence, and her will to succeed do bear fruit, after 10 long, painful
years. But although the extent of her success
is enormous, she still seems a rather sad, tragic figure through it all- she
finally corners her Moby Dick, but when the raid is over, what is she
ultimately left with?

And the answer to that, along with
what one should think about everything else in the film, is left entirely in
the viewer’s hands. If there’s one thing
about Zero Dark Thirty that impressed
me the most, it’s the movie’s near-total lack of commentary on its own subject
matter. Maya and the other operatives
and agents working in bases around the world are not self-righteous
super-patriots. They are just people
doing their jobs, using whatever tools (torture and otherwise) that are made
available to them. A few American flags
are hanging here and there, but no one decks themselves out in red, white, and
blue. Not once does a single character opine
on the morality of war or torture. There
are a few scattered comments about needing to “protect the homeland,” but they’re
delivered in a tone of voice less “We are the defenders of Liberty, Freedom,
and Democracy!!!” and more “The boss wants the donuts ready and in the display
by 6. Get on it.”

Scenes of terrorist attacks (as well as
the final raid on Bin Laden’s compound) are shot with an almost total absence
of music- no weeping violins are to be heard during the recordings of 9/11 or
the London bombings, and Bin Laden’s death is not followed by blaring trumpets. The Special Ops team celebrates and
congratulates each other upon returning to base, but it’s probably something
they would do after any mission, regardless of the target.

This straightforward, business-like
atmosphere of the film also applies to the torture scenes in the beginning,
which have been the source of much controversy of the not-so-delicious variety. The primary accusations against the film since
its release have been twofold- one, that the film promotes torture as an
effective anti-terrorism policy, and two, that torture was crucial to tracking
down Bin Laden (something the CIA has gone to GREAT lengths to claim was not
the case). Honestly, anyone still
pushing either of these arguments has probably not seen the film. No, no one ever explicitly says, “You know,
that torture program we had was kind of a bad idea,” but that’s because it
doesn’t need to. The opening scenes of
torture do not bring Maya and her partners any new information. They only get what they want AFTER they stop
torturing their prisoner and feed him a decent meal. Yes, you do have to apply your critical thinking
skills, but when you do, the idea that this sequence is somehow subtly promoting
torture falls apart rather quickly.

Zero Dark Thirty is one of the
best films of 2012, and easily one of the most important in a year full of
important films. It is not a loud film
of triumph, or chest-thumping patriotism.
It’s somber and serious; it’s editing and direction downplayed and
quiet. As the Ops team heads over the
Afghan-Pakistani border for the final raid, there’s a shot of their choppers
against the mountains of tribal Pakistan.
Flying through huge crevasses in the earth, the top-of-the-line
helicopters, carrying several dozen of the best soldiers in the world and
millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of hardware, look like nothing more
than tiny insects next to the mountains.
What is the shot supposed to signify?
Should it signify anything? Maybe,
maybe not. I guess that’s up to us.